On the forums I see lot of questions regarding BT FON, and I’ve not seen a simple FAQ suitable for motorhomers, so I thought I’d write one to save me typing the same answers all the time! Any questions just ask in the page comment section.

Page Index

What is FON?

FON is “yet another” wifi hotspot company, though the difference to the norm is that they have teamed up with BT, so if you have BT Home Broadband then you can use all FON spots, globally free of charge. FON is a sharing community, so if you join it, BT will also allow others to use your home broadband link (as you will be using others). Worry not, this is separate and secure and does not use your monthly bandwidth allowance.

How do you join?

Since 2009 BT have automatically opted all new Broadband customers in – so just look at your WiFi networks in range of your home – if you have something like BT Homehub-A7B8 and BTOpenzone/BTFon then it is likely you are enrolled. Simply try connecting to the FON/Openzone WiFi hotspot and see if you can access it!

What is my username/password?

Your username will be your BT Internet one, so fred7ab@btinternet.com and your password will be the password for this account. If you don’t know, contact BT HERE

(Note: On some logon screens, you will need to select “BT TOTAL BROADBAND” as your provider – NOT BT Openzone. This may be a select button or a pull-down selection. Sometimes, when you select BT Total Broadband the screen will refresh on another page)

On some pages, where you enter your username there may be faintly written underneath the box “@btinternet.com” – if you see this, you only need to enter the first part of your username – e.g. fred7ab as it will assume the @btinternet.com part

Example of Logging on

Here are some pictures of me logging on to a UK BT Openzone wifi hotspot. First I simply connected WiFi to BT Openzone, and once connected opened up Internet Explorer. You should then be presented with a logon page (actual pages vary).

The important thing is to remember you have a BT Total Broadband account – you do NOT have a FON or BT Openzone account. So in this example, “tick” the BT Total Broadband box and type in your full username/password (then “login”). You will then be presented with a screen confirming login was successful, and then you can use the internet as normal.

After 15 mins of inactivity or sometimes randomly you will be asked to log in again.

Finding remote FON spots

In the UK this is trivial due to the number of BT FON points, but abroad it is harder. Also remember your laptop built-in WiFi only has a real range of maybe 10-15 meters, so finding a FON spot within that range is going to be very tough. In my opinion you NEED a long-range wifi aerial (see HERE) – the one pictured here is the USB Rocket and gives a range of up to 500m (though 1-200m is more realistic).

You can see in the picture in the example above, my normal laptop WiFi (“Wireless network connection”) only sees a single wifi signal (2 bars) which I can’t access, but the rocket shows a BT home hub as well as the FON spots (4 bars power, and the other signal that was 2 bars now has full power). In this case the FON spot was about 150m away. Without the rocket I’d not be able to access…

FON spots don’t always have the same name, so just look out for any with FON in the name!

GPS POI Locations of FON Spots

FON provide up-to-date locations of hotspots on http://maps.fon.com which is great if you are online but chocolate-teapot if you are not. There are also Apple and Andoid apps which may allow you to take a snapshot of an area when online so you can access later.

I also have some Autoroute POI files of the locations which can be useful if you need to have internet access for some reason – and as Autoroute has full offline maps it is the best solution. No point sticking in your satnav as there are so many your satnav may not cope.

For simplicity, all downloads been moved to a single page. Click HERE to get the free downloads

Raw data for all European countries are listed below, these are CSV format so you can do with them what you like and import the into Autoroute.

What if I’m not with BT Broadband?

You have 3 choices, 1 – rejoin BT Broadband as this is one of their benefits; 2 – ask a family member who is a BT Broadband user for their username and password (ahem – thanks Dad!); 3 – buy a FON router and subscribe to that.

Details for option 3 are HERE (FON site) and this allows you to use your alternative broadband provider as well as share with BT FON. This does however use your bandwidth allowance and may not be ideal….

If you manage to use ZON -FON in Portugal please let me know as I could not get onto the so called landing page in some 4 months in portugal. I have switched off my router to FON users as I keep on incurring fines from bt for overusage. I would turn it back on if I heard of somebody actually connecting via zon-fon
regards
john

AL RICHARDSON: Hi can I be cheeky and ask the price you paid for for the pull out bed please?

Rocky: Great job. You seem to have a plastic edging to the carpet around the windows etc. Do you mind telling me what...

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